Launcher of the brand redesign of flagship newspaper, Gracia C Martore is a woman entrepreneur aimed at captivating advantage of Gannett's profound relationships with patrons and advertisers in confined markets across the country. She replaced the ex CEO, Craig Dubow on the 6th of October 2011. She also serves on the Board of Directors chamber of FM Global and MeadWestvaco Corporation.
Gracia C Martore is known to everyone as a person who puts her head down and has the complete focus on her job. She is a friendly yet shy person who always looks ahead to new opportunities and responsibilities.
Gracia C Martore is certainly making the difference as the CEO of Gannet and that was what she hoped for. She believes she was educated to do so. Martore is also paid through salary, bonus, stock options and also deferred compensation.
Early days and Education
Martore has earned double degrees from two majors namely History and Political Science. She passed out from Wellesley College in the year 1973. While she was studying at the Wellesley College, she was applauded for her academic excellence. Her estimated compensation as figured out by the business magazine Forbes is about 8 million dollars.
Career Spark
Gracia C Martore completed her graduation program in the year 1973. It is apparently mentioned on her career blog, that she has had 12 years of active work experience in the banking sector. Not many references are given on the companies she worked with, prior to joining Gannett in the year 1985. She joined Gannett Co Inc. as an Assistant Treasurer. Then in the year 1993, she went on to become the Vice President of the Treasury group. She added additional responsibilities to her kitty, in terms of taking up investor relations duties. This was in the year 1995. During the year 1998, she became the President of the Treasury Group. And she was also the Vice President of the Investor relations team.
In addition to her responsibilities as a Treasurer, she was promoted to a grand profile of Senior Vice President of Finance, for the entire group at Gannett. This was in the year 2001. Then, she went on to bag the profile of Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and was appointed in Gannett’s management committee. This milestone was achieved by the powerful lady in the year 2003. She finally became the Executive President and took up the role of a CFO in 2005. Finally in the year 2011 she was named as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Gannett group, and bagged the coveted post from Craig Dubow.
This marks her thorough career spark from the day; she joined America’s biggest newspaper company up until now.
Her journey with Gannett
Gracia became the CEO of Gannett with effect from 06th October 2011. She is a very straight forward person and committed when it takes to making important decisions on behalf of the company. In her entire career span of 26 years, she knows what is in the best interest of the company and what is not.
From her career spark as stated in the above paragraph, you can easily make out as to how she has risen up the corporate ladder step by step to become the CEO. Her rewards and recognition in terms of Forbes stating her as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world testifies the magnitude of achievements made by her individually as well as a team.
Not to underestimate the fact that she is one of the top 17 women in the world, who have made it to the ultimate, by bagging the post of a CEO of a top company.
We are going to have a look at some of the business values followed my Martore, to make her what she is today.
She used to focus on the job at hand
No matter how simple or how tedious the job was, the moment she had expertise in an area of operation, she used to plunge in. She assumed newer responsibilities and took up newer challenges which helped her in decision making. Youngsters need to take her as a live example to come up step by step. The 60 year old is an energetic person, when it comes to working for the company. She is a people’s person, all together.
True Meritocracy
The all powerful lady feels true merit takes you on to the pedestal of success, no matter if you are a man or a woman. It doesn’t matter you have all the degrees in the world but you would be regarded as a dumb person, if you are not capable of making the right decisions at the right time.
The lady untiringly took up responsibilities and made major moves in the financial domain of the media company named Gannett and was least perturbed by the fact that she is a woman and swayed the wrong perception that women are not capable of calling shots, out of the window.
Organizational chart
When Martore started off, way back in 1973, she worked in a banking console. People were constantly pulling and pushing against her gender, like hey, this is the first woman to do this and this is the first woman to do that. She did not like this kind of prejudiced opinions portrayed on women.
When she joined a global firm named Gannett, she looked at who were behind contributing to the company’s overall responsibilities and the senior positions held by them. She worked hard towards assuming tedious responsibilities and achieved fantastic results. She followed up with amazing marketing and advertizing strategies for the company and made it big.
Thick Skinned
Whatever people comment on you, just does not bother. A don’t care attitude of Gracia was what made her establish a niche for herself in the industry. After all you know what you are capable of achieving, no matter what the other person thinks or feels about you.
Shun your comfort zone
The all powerful woman CEO never thought about family, her husband and kids at work. While at home, she never thought about office. She clearly differentiated between her goals and responsibilities at home and at work. This made her sail through.
On the personal front
Martore is married to Joseph or Joe Martore as he is known and the couple has two children. She was reared in her early days in the Boston suburb of Belmont, Mass in their family house which was built by her father. Her father died when she was just in her teens.
Joe Martore was also named as the “2012 Contractor of the Year” at the 10th Anniversary Greater Washington GOVERNMENT Contractor Awards.
| Awards and Accolades | |
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Institutional Investor Magazine named Martore as one of the best CFO’s in the whole of America. She has bagged this particular award three years in a row (2004, 2005 and 2006). |
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Virginia Business named her ‘CFO of the year 2006’. |
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She was one among the ‘100 most powerful women’ as per reports released by Forbes. This was to accredit her astounding performance at Gannett and for bagging the profile of a CEO (Chief Executive Officer). |
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Fortune Magazine also rated Martore as one of the ‘50 Most Powerful Women in Business. |
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She was also named as the 100 Most Powerful Women by Washingtonian Magazine. |
| Professional Affiliations | |
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Belo Corp. |
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MeadWestvaco Corporation |
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The Associated Press, Inc. |
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USA TODAY International Corporation |
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Wellesley College |
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Factory Mutual Insurance Company |
| Quotes | |
 Women
need to be in key operational roles where they run businesses in the
organization. Sometimes when organizations focus on leadership
diversity, they're mostly in areas like HR or non-operating line
functions. |
|
| Back
when I was looking for my next step and was researching Gannett, I was
interested in who was leading the various businesses within the
organization: Are there a lot of women and minorities in important,
operational roles, senior management and the board of directors? |
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| News in printed form is in secular decline. However, news delivered the way consumers want it is growing and thriving. |
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| It
doesn't matter what your pedigree is, who your family is or what
degrees you have. What really matters is how you perform your job and
how you produce results. Whoever could do the best job, that's who the
focus is on - and it definitely doesn't matter if I am a woman or a man. |
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| Every
day, all of us at Gannett are given the rare and sacred opportunity to
affect change for the good in the communities we serve, to make life
better for the people who trust us to know them and do right by them. |
|
| If
you're going to succeed, then you just have to be thick-skinned. It's
something I developed early in my career, and it just goes with the
territory. |
|
| I
had lots of opportunities to go with companies where I could be
responsible for two foreign currencies, and if I did a really, really
good job, I could be responsible for four foreign currencies. | |
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